A Certain Artificial Bioform
by Arcane-Boomeus
Summary: Academy City is, on the surface, a gleaming utopia populated by espers- people who wield strange powers ranging from keeping cookies warm to shooting lighting from their fingertips- and full of miraculous technologies... In reality, it's not a nice place. The most powerful espers are free to do as they please, and when a new level 5 is created, she is no exception... Blahblahblah
1. Prologue

_A Certain Artificial Bioform _

Non-Indicative Grimdark Prologue:

The A.L.I.C.E. Initiative

I grimaced at the message I'd received. It merely cemented firmly into place what I had long since realized. I'm evil. I'm the 'mad scientist'... and I'm working for the people who should be the 'good guys'... but this is real life. There were no heroes who came to stop me. No retribution of any sort. Hell, nobody would ever know what we'd done.

I looked upon my life's work, my greatest achievement, my vision come alive. I looked at the child who would never be a child, and I saw it. What I'd really done. I had tried to create the world's most powerful Esper.

I looked at the message again, then at the pistol I'd purchased today. I knew it didn't matter if it was me or one of the other researchers. I knew that someone else would step up and fill the position of 'Director'... but I didn't care. I couldn't take it anymore.

I put pen to paper and started to write. Not that it mattered, but I felt like I was obligated to do so. Maybe I thought the world deserved an explanation.

_I__'ve__ done horrible things. The lives of five children... no, not five. Six. Though the sixth was the project, the result, and what the other five had died for... the sixth would suffer just as much as the others, if not more. _

_ I had heard of Japan's Academy City. Heard tales of the great and powerful Espers there- especially the legendary "Railgun", Misaka Mikoto, a level five 'Electromaster', and the one called "Accelerator", the potential level six who has the power to control vectors. _

_ Level five, potential level six. Just referring to a person by a 'level' seems so cruel and cold, now... so clinical. Not that I have any right to criticize, not after what I did. What we did..._

_ Our project was government-funded from the start- the A.L.I.C.E. Initiative's first 'grant' came in the form of a blank check. We liked to play a little game with our 'grants'- whoever could get the most zeroes on the check was the winner._

_ The sad reality was that we were trying to distract ourselves from what our goal really was, what we were doing. _

_ The even sadder part?_

_We managed to convince ourselves that it was all worth it. Somehow, we decided that our goal was noble. We were fools. _

_ How could we have been so blind? _

_How could we do such terrible things to those children? _

_ We told ourselves that it was for science, for the good of man, that we were paving the way... _

_We tortured those children. Each and every one of them. Had to coax out their maximum power levels, you see, before we harvested them. _

_ It's amazing, really, how resilient a human can be- none of those children were above level three, but the powers they demonstrated when they knew they were about to die were... impressive, to say the least. Definitely level four material. All because they had nothing to lose. As they say, "The cornered rat will bite the cat."_

_ … Did I forget to tell you where we got the Esper children from?_

_They were _our_ children. They were tortured by their own parents- to increase the trauma, the emotion... the power... _

_ I shouldn't say 'our children'. I have no children of my own- I suppose you could say that A.L.I.C.E. was my child, in some sick and twisted way. _

_ Yes... A.L.I.C.E. was my daughter, and, like the others, I tortured her myself. I just used a much crueler method... the method of a coward. Two-faced, underhanded... manipulating it all behind the scenes, before the scenes were ever even written._

_ We wanted to create the world's greatest Esper. The ultimate warrior. The most powerful being in all existence. A little girl._

_ We created her body from 'scratch'... designed it to function with the ability we had intended to give her- the ability to produce, shape, move, and otherwise interact with ice. We made her resistant to temperatures far lower than the lowest naturally-occurring temperatures ever recorded on the face of the Earth. Then, we figured that it wouldn't be too much extra work to expand her ability a little..._

_ We gave her the ability to lower the temperature of water molecules around her by allowing her to take the energy away from whatever she pleased. Then, we decided that if she did it subconsciously, too, then she could regulate her body temperatures- we removed her sweat glands to avoid any sort of problems having two cooling systems could create. _

_ When we realized that we had accidentally given her the ability to take the energy away from more than just water molecules, we shrugged it off. I'm on record as having said, "What's the worst that could happen?"_

_ I only wish I had seen it then. The answer. The worst that could happen?_

_Success._

_ We were tasked with creating the most powerful Esper ever, and we did._

_We created A.L.I.C.E., engineered false memories for her- a happy childhood with two parents and a brother... until she discovered her powers when she accidentally killed all three of them. She had nothing to lose, nothing in particular to live for, and the incentive to maintain control over her powers at all times. _

_ We didn't realize exactly what those powers were, though. Not until we had already tricked her into creating her Personal Reality- the thing that allows an Esper to have power, by believing that they can bend the 'rules' and projecting that belief upon the world around them..._

_ No, how could we not have realized that a young child, upon having a reality forced upon her, might interpret it differently than we expected? She saw that she could make ice, that she could make it cold by taking away the heat... and didn't know that she was supposed to absorb heat energy. She saw the heat being removed. She saw energy vanishing from existence. _

_ She broke the Law of Conservation of Energy. She didn't understand that things couldn't just... disappear. The laws of physics shattered under the combined might of six Espers crammed into one mind. Our theories had proven far more correct than we could have dreamed- combining the 'essences' we'd harvested from the five children caused the power to escalate exponentially._

_ Naturally, we tried to correct our mistake- but we couldn't. Her Personal Reality had already formed. So we did the next best thing- we added new memories, made her understand that she couldn't do what she could do. _

_ We made her into a time bomb- if she realized her true powers, she would certainly see through the false memories. She would go horribly, irrevocably insane... and with her powers, we don't know what she could do- perhaps she would gaze into the shattered and empty abyss of her own mind, and decide that, if her memories didn't exist, then the universe didn't exist, either._

_ Whatever happens... we deserve it. We've created a dark destroyer and haphazardly hidden it within the heart of a little girl... and we augmented her already unnatural powers with the tormented fragments of the minds of five other little children... _

_ Personal Reality and insanity are separated by a fine line... you can't have one without a little bit of the other. And now... we've shoved five tormented and insane minds into an already unstable one... disaster is soon to follow. _

_ Our only hope lies in the possibility that Alice finds something to live for, something to protect... something she doesn't want to destroy in Academy City. We've chosen the form of our destruction, filled it with terrible resolve, given it no motive or direction, fueled it with hate, and blinded it with fear. She will strive to achieve perfect control over herself, in hopes of never hurting anyone ever again... and she'll inevitably fail. _

_ And they're lauding the A.L.I.C.E. Initiative as an outstanding success. I've been informed that they've creatively dubbed her 'Operative Ice'. _

_ I wonder when they'll realize just how ironic that title is. 'Operative'. It's funny, really- she's barely operating now... and nobody wants to see her at full power. No one human being should wield such power... we must hope that she never finds her latest and most powerful abilities._

_I'm sorry... Alma. Lenore. Isabella. Charles. Eddy... Alice. I'm sorry, mankind._

_ I'm so sorry._

I dropped the pen and moved my now-shaking hand over to the pistol I'd placed on my desk not ten minutes earlier. I picked it up, shivering at the feeling of the cool metal in my hand.

I took a final look at the message I had received.

_Dear Director,_

_ After the resounding success of your 'ALICE Initiative', and the incredible feats Operative Ice has proven capable of, we of the Board would like to propose a new project for you and your team. We have tentatively entitled it 'Project Deadeye'. _

_ Further information will be provided at a later date._

_ We look forward to your cooperation. _

I wasn't even surprised when I received it. They wanted another super-soldier. They wanted it to be done more efficiently- no other children, no creating an artificial human... no, they wanted to find a way to change and augment the powers of an Esper... I didn't even want to know how they planned to go about doing that.

"May God have mercy on our wretched souls." I said, moving the gun to my head. I closed my eyes... and squeezed the trigger.

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I watched Operative Ice from behind my mirrored sunglasses. She was out with a group of five other girls- I'd read their files already. The lanky and tomboyish Misaka Mikoto, the level five Electromaster known as 'the Railgun' and 'the Ace of Tokiwadai Middle School', was leading the group.

Misaka's closest friend, Kuroko Shirai, walked a half a step behind and to the side of her. There was a bit of a skip in her step, as if she felt like all was right with the world. Shirai was a level four teleporter, a student at Tokiwadai, and an accomplished officer of Judgment- a police force composed of students.

The two girls following behind them were Saten Ruiko and Uiharu Kazari- and, though neither of them attended Tokiwadai, they had been friends with Misaka and Kuroko for far longer than the others. Saten was a rather unremarkable girl- a level zero esper, not a very good student, and that sort of thing- but she was athletic, loyal, and generally quite peppy.

Uiharu Kazari was an unremarkable esper- a level one with an ability that wasn't very impressive, and was completely unrelated to the flowery headband she was always wearing- and an otherwise remarkable person. She was _amazing_ with computers, for one thing. She was a Judgment officer alongside Kuroko Shirai, and far less robust than Saten, her closest friend.

The girls behind Saten and Uiharu were the ones I was most concerned with, though. Tsukasa Takamichi and none other than Alice Ice herself. Takamichi was almost like an anchor for Operative Ice. She was a level four telekineticist, and she attended Tokiwadai with Misaka, Kuroko, and Alice- additionally, she was Alice's roommate. She was calm and collected, yet still kind and rather friendly.

And then there was Alice. She was... cold. It took her months to trust her friends- which, considering she wasn't even a year old, was a painstaking process... stranger still was that she hadn't resisted or forced them away at any point, as everyone involved in the project had expected her to... the thing that the researchers didn't take into account is that her friends didn't treat her like the killing machine she was designed to be- they treated her like a human being. Especially Tsukasa.

To everyone else, though, Alice became even colder, even less trusting- almost as if, in her mind, she had all the friends she needed, and had to defend and protect them by whatever means necessary. And she made it clear that her friends weren't to be messed with- here in Academy City, there are thugs around every corner, and they seem to enjoy harassing young girls... Alice always enjoyed seeing how severely she can maim such thugs without killing them, and while staying within the bounds of 'self defense'.

Of course, nobody cared about those guys- not only were they attacking young girls, but they were stupid enough to attack the famous "Railgun" and the infamous "Ice Queen". Even if they didn't recognize the two specifically, the Tokiwadai uniforms should have been quite the deterrent- after all, all Tokiwadai students are at least level three espers. Their stupidity becomes even more apparent when you take into account the number of times that they were assaulted whilst Kuroko and Uiharu were wearing their Judgment arm-bands.

I leaned back in my seat and sighed... and realized that Alice was staring at me.

Her gaze sent shivers down my spine. She regarded me icily for a moment before Tsukasa tugged on her hand and dragged her along. I shuddered when she shot a look at me whilst walking away, for, even though she was laughing at something one of her friends had said, her eyes were fixed solely on me, and they were _not_ laughing.

I reached up to my ear and pressed a button on my earpiece. "This is Deadeye," I reported, "I've been spotted by good ol' Frosty again. She didn't look happy about it, either. Who was the idiot who decided to put me on spy duty, anyways? I'm not trained for this spying crap."

There was a pause. "That would be _me_, actually."

I frowned. "Really?"

"Yeah. Really."

I smirked. "Huh. Were you aware that you're a moron who is terrible at his job? Or is this news to you?"

"And were you aware that you're not there to spy on Operative Ice? You're there to monitor her, sure, but you're also there in case something goes wrong. Or is all of this news to you?"

I frowned again, sincerely disgusted. "So I'm here to put her down if she gets out of hand? Is that it?"

"...You've seen her file. You know what she's capable of... and that she is... expendable... to an extent."

The hairs stood on the back of my neck when I realized what he was saying. "As long as her brain is intact..." I breathed, "that's why you chose me. I'm the only one who can put a person down without fail, headshot or otherwise..."

"Exactly. Obviously, it would be preferable to keep her alive- her body was very expensive to make, as I'm sure you already know, but her brain is priceless- you're there to make sure that the most important part isn't lost. Such precautions were deemed necessary when someone realized that Alice likes to get into trouble. It only took them _months_ to figure that out." He chuckled.

My stomach churned. "I understand. Deadeye out."

I switched the earpiece off and went to find a toilet to vomit in. _'I'm not getting paid enough for this.'_

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Tsukasa tugged on my arm. "Hurry up, Alice," she said with a smile, "or the others will leave us behind!"

I shot one final glare at the tall woman wearing the sunglasses. _'Observation: This is the third time you have seen that woman this week.'_

_'Could she be a stalker? A spy would have been professional and good at her job, and an assassin would have, you know, assassinated someone already...'_ another voice wondered.

I smiled at Tsukasa and walked along with her, taking no small amount of happiness from the fact that she was holding my hand. _'Whatever she's doing,'_ I thought, _'she's not going to try anything. Did you see the way she was shaking when I stared at her? She was scared out of her mind.'_

_'Either way,'_ a third voice said, _'you should enjoy yourself, Alice. Let us worry about everything else for awhile. Five heads are better than one, after all.'_

I considered that for a moment or two. _'Yeah, I guess you're right... thanks, guys. For __everything.'_

The fourth voice snickered. _'Just remember- we get front row seats if you get laid. That's enough thanks for me.'_

If he wasn't a part of me, I would have accused him of being a pervert. However, he was, which meant he was also probably expressing some inner desires of mine or something... right?_ 'Do you really have to be so honest? __You're almost as bad as Saten- if you could flip Uiharu's skirt up, you would.__'_

_The retort came quickly. 'Who wouldn't?!' _

_'I dunno 'bout ya'll, but I'm feelin' mighty nervous right about now...' _said the fifth and final voice.

_'__Statement: __If the __perspiration__ on Tsukasa's __palms__ is, __in fact,__ indicative of nervousness, then she is __very probably__ at least as nervous as __you__ are.'_

I blushed a little when I realized that Tsukasa's hand was, in fact, wet. '_W-what do I do? Should I say something?'_

_'Hmm... I reckon leanin' in real close-like and whisperin' "I'm nervous, too," or sumthin' cain't hurt.'_

_'Right,'_ I thought. _'Southern gentleman voice is probably right.'_

_'Aw, shucks. Ya'll really mean it? Ya'll reckon I'm a gentleman?'_

The other voices offered various affirmative statements while I brought my lips to Tsukasa's ear. "I'm nervous, too," I whispered.

Tsukasa flushed bright red and tightened her grip on my hand, but didn't say anything.

_'You used a sultry voice! What are you trying to do, grant ero-voice's wishes so early in the day?'_

I frowned as a thought dawned on me. _'Wait, wait, wait- have you guys ever noticed that I don't sweat? We accept that, but isn't that a bit _worrisome_? I mean, just having ice powers shouldn't make my sweat glands stop working, should it?'_

_'… Actually, I must admit that I hadn't considered it until just now...'_

_'I reckon that ain't a good sign...'_

_ 'Query: Would a physician be able to provide further insight into this matter?'_

_'That's definitely possible. A doctor would know way more about anatomy than any of us.'_

As we rounded a corner, Tsukasa and I bumped into Saten and Uiharu, who had, in turn, bumped into Misaka and Kuroko- presumably, Misaka and Kuroko had stopped abruptly after rounding the aforementioned corner. Unfortunately, I happened to have bumped into Saten, who was- and still is, for that matter- quite a bit taller than me (fortunately, though, my hair is far more thick and luscious than hers).

Despite my view being obstructed by Saten, and my nose being distracted by her long hair (which smelled pretty nice), I was able to use my rather keen sense of hearing to... well, _hear stuff_. I heard generic thugs and their generic creepy taunting of my friends.

_'Sounds like... four guys? Laaaaaaaame. It's like they're not even trying anymore,'_ I thought, annoyed by the lack of any sort of challenge.

_ 'Hey, isn't it your turn, Alice? Tsukasa got the last group, right?'_

_'I still say it ain't particularly ladylike to be takin' "turns" fightin' goons...'_

I ignored southern gentleman voice's complaining and tapped Saten on the shoulder. "Oh, right," she said, "it's Alice's turn this time." She let me slip past her.

As I sidled between Kuroko and Misaka, a hand grasped my shoulder. "Alice," Kuroko sternly said, "could you try and not maim them this time?"

As I stepped past and faced the four guys, who stood in a double-line blocking the sidewalk, one of them jeered, "What're you tryin' to do? Sacrifice the short girl?"

My left eye twitched when I heard 'short'.

_'Jus' ignore 'em, Alice. They ain't worth it.'_

_ 'He's right, Alice. Just keep your cool.'_

Another joined in. "Yeah, what is she? Your little sister? She doesn't even have breasts!"

I forced a pleasant smile. _'Little... sister? Little...?'_

_'Oh boy.'_

_ 'Ugh. Just whoop 'em and get it over with. Fights are boring. We're supposed to get laid today, not lay out a couple of jerks.'_

_'… You ain't helpin'.'_

"And what's with her bangs? Get a haircut, kid!"

_'__Here we go...'_

That was the last straw. "Sorry, Kuroko... these... boys need to... learn... some... manners."

I raised my right hand from hanging at my side to parallel with the ground. As my hand rose, so did three walls of ice- one behind me, one behind them, and one on the curb, using the outer wall of the building to the right to box us in completely. Each wall around half an inch thick, and tough enough to stop even an armor-piercing bullet. I didn't bother raising the walls past about ten feet tall- in fact, I didn't really have to 'raise' them at all, as I could form them instantaneously, but I felt like it was cooler and more intimidating (and a bit more dramatic) than a wall appearing out of nowhere. For similar reasons, I almost never made my ice transparent, and the walls were no exception. As an afterthought, I added a ceiling to complete the box- because _why not_?

_'You are being foolish, Alice. You know that these men, now unable to escape, and having witnessed your powers, will not hesitate to kill you.'_

_ 'Alma's right. Ya ain't got no way of knowin' what those fellers might have up their sleeves.'_

The mention of a name that wasn't mine surprised me._ 'Wait, you have names?'_

_ '… Good job, Charles. Way to be discrete.'_

_'Hey, look out!'_

_'That's not going to work on me,'_ I thought angrily,_ 'you can't weasel your way out of this. Why didn't you tell me-'_

_ 'No, seriously! Those guys have guns! Try paying a little attention for once!'_

I focused and saw that they really _did_ have guns. The two guys standing in back produced an ancient-looking assault rifle and a similarly ancient-looking lever-action shotgun. The guys in front whipped out Glocks.

"Wait just a second," I said incredulously, "is that an _AK-47_? Like, an actual AK-47? Not a '74 or something?" I snickered. "I'm sorry, I know I should be taking you guys more seriously, but it looks like you just robbed a pawn shop or something."

There was no response- other than the sounds of them readying their guns, that is.

_'Recommendation: A geodesic dome of transparent ice would offer maximum protection from small arms fire, __and allow you to accurately counterattack.__'_

I liked the sound of that. I snapped my fingers- something that always helped me to coordinate the simultaneous formation of multiple pieces of ice- and created a 'dome' out of hexagons and pentagons. They opened fire in response to my finger-snapping... and the already-loud sound of four firearms being discharged echoed off of the walls and hit my eardrums like a bunch of sledgehammers.

I may not have mentioned this, but I have sensitive ears. _Very_ sensitive ears. I cupped my hands over my ears, stumbled backwards, closed my eyes, and fell against the ice wall behind me.

It was _so, so _very _loud _that I couldn't even form coherent thoughts- probably because it felt like my skull was throbbing.

I had dropped the temperature of the area around me- a subconscious response to stress- to the point that the thugs' breath was visible.

And after several seconds that seemed like an eternity, the shooting stopped- they needed to reload.

"YOU STILL ALIVE, GIRLIE?" One shouted, though, at the time, I hadn't heard it. In fact, I couldn't hear anything but a ringing sound, and I felt blood dripping from my ears- it didn't drip far, though, because it quickly froze.

Through the cracked ice of my geodesic shield, I saw them fumbling with their weapons in attempt to reload.

_'Statement: The dome cannot handle much more.'_

_'It...' I cringed at the ringing in my ears. 'It's time to deal with them...'_

_ 'Normally, I ain't too keen on killin' folks, but under the circumstances...'_

_'You're in no position to be taking prisoners, Alice. The sentiment is nice, but your friends aren't going to judge you for killing these guys. Now get to it, before they start-'_

The guy with the AK-47 started firing again- and, this time, bullets started coming through. I felt something hot in my stomach, and I didn't need to look down to know I'd been shot... I think I screamed, but I couldn't hear it. I was glad I hadn't tried to stand, because the bullet would have hit me in the knee, and I was pretty sure that a wound like that would have been much worse.

I closed my eyes and concentrated- and took a shot to the chest. It was painful. Excruciatingly so. Adrenaline can only do so much.

I howled, enraged, and raised both arms, viciously whipping them from left to right- towards the stone wall. I wasn't sure _what_, exactly, I'd done, but it felt like I'd used my powers.

I didn't get shot again, and I realized that I was tired. Very tired... I didn't see the harm in resting, so I let my eyes drift closed...

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_'It's just like Alice to make walls of ice and keep them from running away,'_ I thought, feeling mildly annoyed by her eagerness to fight.

After a few moments, Saten laughed nervously. "She's taking longer than usual, huh? Do you think she's trying to negotiate with them?"

We all laughed at that. "Yeah," I said, "Alice is resolving something peacefully, and my name isn't Tsukasa Takamichi."

"Okay, this is weird," Misaka said, pressing her ear up against the icy wall, "I don't even hear any giggling... just... voices? It's hard to tell- it's all muffled."

Kuroko looked concerned. "She couldn't be in trouble, could she?"

"Is it Alice's voice? She could be talking to herself," Uiharu said, "maybe she's trying to come up with something cool to say when she gets rid of those walls."

"Does Alice come up with them on the spot? I always thought she prepared them beforehand," I said, "but, now that you mention it, Alice isn't really the type to come up with something in adv-"

I was interrupted by the sound of gunfire.

Misaka reacted quickly. She dug some coins out of her pocket and ran around the box and into the street- and was almost hit by a truck. She fell over backwards in surprise as it screeched to a halt, and dropped her coins in the process.

"Misaka, stop!" Uiharu shouted. "I know you want to help, but those walls are too thick to see where Alice is, and the sound of the gunfire is probably echoing off of the walls! You can't just go blowing it up!"

It's a good thing she said that, too, because the moment the driver of the truck had hopped out, I had decided to throw it at the spot where those thugs had been standing beforehand... and that would have been just about as bad as Misaka using her 'railgun' thingie- maybe even worse, when you consider that throwing a truck is much less precise than shooting a coin.

Saten didn't like what Uiharu had said, though. "We can't just stand around and wait, Uiharu! Our friend is in there! We have to do _something_!"

"Tsukasa," Kuroko said calmly, "can't you move the walls?"

I shook my head. "No, they're frozen to the surfaces they're attached to- I'm not powerful enough to tear out the sidewalk, and the side of the building... not if we want to keep Alice un-smashed..."

The gunfire stopped.

We all froze- including the guy who had been driving the truck.

Misaka broke the silence. "It... stopped. Do... do you think they-" She paused, as if steeling herself."Do you think they... killed her?"

"No..." Kuroko muttered, "No. Alice's ice is bulletproof, right? They're probably just reloading..." She frowned. "Sissy, do you hear that? That clicking sound? It's pretty quiet..."

Misaka's eyes lit up. "Quiet enough that it won't echo."

"We still can't risk hurting her," Uiharu stated, "and let's be honest- those guys are only alive because Alice is trying to avoid killing them."

I shook my head and clicked my tongue incredulously. "Since when does Alice avoid killing? I mean, she's my... _friend_, and I care deeply for her, but... she's crazy."

"No, Uiharu's right," Kuroko said, "I read her file. She doesn't kill people if she can help it... not after-" Kuroko cleared her throat at an awkward time. She was clearly trying to cut herself off and pretend she hadn't been saying something else.

I crossed my arms and glared at Kuroko. "After _what_?"

"Yeah," Misaka said, "after _what_? What are you hiding, Kuroko?"

A second burst of gunfire rang out, distracting us all... and then we heard Alice scream. I hadn't heard her scream before. I felt numb, and, without realizing it, I fell to my knees. It was the kind of scream that you didn't want to hear from anyone, let alone your best friend... or your significant other... and it was so loud that we heard it clearly- almost as clearly as the gunshots.

"Alice..." I whimpered, "no..."

Then there was another scream- it wasn't a scream I particularly wanted to hear, either, but it wasn't a dying scream or a wail of despair or anything like that. It was more of a roar- like a battle cry, but without the words... just the furious, unadulterated hatred and rage and blood-lust...

After that was a sound I still wish I hadn't heard- a strange screeching whoosh-y sound... followed by complete silence. There were no screams... no indication that anything had happened.

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"Wake up, Alice," said a voice. It was a friendly voice, soft and kind, but also very... compelling, as if I instinctively knew to respect the speaker.

I opened my eyes to see a figure, cloaked in a black...well, a black _cloak_. I shoulda used 'swathed' or something there, I guess.

In addition to the figure, there was a bright light- normally, it would have been harsh and painful to look at, but... it just wasn't. Other than the figure and the light, there wasn't anything. And I'm not just conserving details here- there was literally nothing else... but, physically, I still felt like I was propped up against my ice wall, which seemed really strange to me.

I looked down at myself. I don't think I need to tell you that my uniform was ruined- it was covered in blood _and_ frozen (the blood was frozen, too- in fact, maybe it was only the blood that was frozen, but, because it was soaked into my uniform, it seemed like my uniform was frozen...).

"Oh," I said as I looked up from my wounded body and looked at the figure, "I'm dead, aren't I? I think I remember something about a cloaked skeleton guy or something..." I considered it for a moment. "Are you God?"

The figure laughed. "No, child," it said, "I'm Death."

I shrugged. "At least I got the dead part right."

It chuckled. "Not really, no... not yet, at least. You were built tough."

"Okay, I don't even know what to say here. Just... explain or... whatever."

"Like I said, you're not dead yet. But you are frozen in a cage of your own super-ice, wounded, and unconscious."

"So... what? You showed up early for work today?"

"Actually, I'm here on behalf of the big guy himself. Ya see, you're... well, you're not a human. Kind of. You're, shall we say, artificial. The people who made you did a bang-up job, but you're a bit of a gray area when it comes to... well, all sorts of things. Which is most of the reason I'm here right now. I came to make you a deal."

I frowned. "So... I'm not a real person? I'm not 'a real boy'? Does my nose grow when I lie? Are you here to finish me off?" I gestured at myself. "I'm not exactly in a position to defend myself here, I think, so give it to me straight. What do you want?"

"Oh, believe me, you're almost entirely a pretty normal human being... just with some extra bits thrown in, some excess bits removed, and some memories grafted into your brain. They didn't even bother to attempt to change them to fit what they told you- after all, why would you question your own memories? If you'll think back, I can prove it to you- think back to the day you killed everyone you loved. I'm sure you remember it... think about their corpses. No ice. Not even any frosty stuff. They're just dead. No way you killed them with your ice powers- not at that level."

I thought back... and realized Death was right. "Okay, make your point. Gimme the punchline."

"That was, supposedly, the day you first used your powers- the day you created your personal reality. But that day never happened. Your reality was created through a sort of simulation... but they didn't consider that your average little girl doesn't understand the finer points of physics. You were _supposed_ to freeze them to death by absorbing their heat energy, but that's not how your uneducated mind saw it- you didn't see that the energy left their bodies- you saw that their bodies no longer had energy, and your personal reality... well, it took a turn for the impossible. Your powers involve breaking the law of conservation of energy. It's how you killed those thugs over there- dropped a bullet out of the air, too. Pretty cool stuff... and incredibly dangerous."

"It may seem redundant to tell you that what you're telling me is impossible, but I think I'll go ahead and say it anyways, if it's all the same to you."

Death shrugged. "Sure, go ahead. Consider it a consolation from me to you- after all, you just popped your murder cherry."

I cleared my throat. "That's impossible."

Death chuckled. "See, the big guy is pretty big on 'equivalent exchange'. Creating and destroying things- that's _his_ job. So he asked me to offer you a bargain- in exchange for your ability to ruin everything and potentially destroy the universe, you'll be granted three wishes."

"You're kidding me, right?"

"Of course. In exchange for your accidental power borne of shoddy simulators and foolish scientists and being powerful and ignorant enough to ignore laws of physics, the big guy'll _alter_ reality- ever so slightly- and give you a different ability. One with the potential to be even more powerful, but completely controllable... and just as versatile- though in a completely different way than the old one."

"Completely controllable... do you mean... I wouldn't have to..." I felt tears streaking down my cheeks. They froze by the time they were level with my mouth... but they were happy tears. "I wouldn't have to be so... in control."

"Yup. You wouldn't have to worry about killing everyone nearby all the time." Death chuckled. "You were designed to be the ultimate killing machine, you know that? And they did a good job- too good a job, really- yet, after months and months of fighting, you only claimed your first lives today... and, let's be honest, you weren't doing it out of some sort of guilt, were you? No, you were doing it because you wanted to keep those friends of yours... I'm not sure whether that's admirable or disgusting, really, but it is pretty impressive."

I nodded. "I'll take your deal... but I... I can't just believe you when you tell me everything I know is a lie..."

"Don't think of it as a lie- think of it as... a broken truth."

"Broken... truth..." I contemplated the meaning of the phrase. I scowled. "Broken truth." I felt angry. Incredibly angry. Angry at the people who made me, filled me with false memories, and tried to make me into a weapon.

It was as if I had been filled with resolve, given a goal, a target, a mission. "Who did this to me, Death?"

Death chuckled. "Now, where's the fun in telling you that? Next you'll be asking what your new power will be..." It laughed. "Well, since you won't remember anything anyways... I suppose it can't hurt."

"I'm going to forget this conversation?" I asked. Little did I know that Death was gonna be a dick about it- when he said 'anything', he meant it. Even if I had noticed it at the time, I wouldn't have been able to protest- after all, I had already accepted the deal. Not that the memories mattered anyways- it seems that 'the big guy' changed everyone's memories to match... or maybe the past itself. Regardless, the old memories were almost completely irrelevant.

"You won't remember a thing- your brain will be... rewired, in a way. Some things may be lost, but others will be gained..."

"So... who's 'the big guy'? Is it God or something?"

Death laughed. "Oh, no, it's the dark lord Satan, of course. God would give you a nice power that didn't require you to consume other living things, didn't let you have swords for arms, and, most of all, wouldn't let you be _awesome_."

"So... I just made a deal with the devil? Am I gonna get royally screwed over? Is my eternal soul going to be sentenced to an eternity of burny-pain in the fiery pits of hell or something?"

Death laughed some more. "No, it's even better. You're going to give up those voices in your head. Five tormented souls... the big guy has plans for them, and is willing to shape you into the ultimate life form in exchange."

"Shadow?" I said, wondering how many times I would have to scream 'MAAAAAAAAAAAAAARIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAA' per day.

"No, think more along the lines of Heller or Mercer."

I gasped. "Whoa! Satan can do that?!"

"You bet he can!"

"So... those 'five souls'... they won't be sentenced to an eternity in the fiery-burny-murder-pain holes either, will they?"

"No, no. They'll become demons or psychopomps or... whatever the big guy feels he needs more of, really. Hell is really more of a prison than a burning hole of torture and pain, you know. The big guy is analogous to a warden. Human religion sees him as evil for the same reason that a prisoner might hate his or her captor. Everyone just bases their stuff off of Dante's _Inferno. _It's really quite inconsiderate, when you think about it."

"Oh," I said, "I guess that makes sense. I don't really know much about theology... if my memories were engineered to make me a weapon, then religion probably wasn't a focus, huh? 'Thou shalt not murder' and all that, right?"

Death snickered. "It's funny you should say that- correctly, I mean. Most of the time, it's translated as 'thou shalt not kill'."

"Which isn't a very good policy for a weapon."

"Indeed."

**0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O**

END CHAPTER-

Oh. _Shit_. Sorry. Lemme just, uh...

'Kay, I think I've got it.

**END PROLOGUE**

BAM

And the screw-up is gone!

Only it's not.

CURSE YOU, MYSTERIOUS LAZY GUY WITH A KEYBOARD!

Man, I'm glad _I'm_ not a lazy guy with a keyboard. 'Cause that'd be really awk- oh.

Awwww_ maaaaaaaaaaaan_. Curses are srs bsns.

Man, that was some overly grimdark stuff, huh?  
Why start the hero out with a completely different power and then kill(kinda) her in the prologue?

BECAUSE WHY NOT?  
EXPOSITION IS GOOD AND STUFF.

GEEZ~

BAKA

THE NEXT CHAPTER INVOLVES COOLNESS, A "MANTICORE", AND AT LEAST ONE HEAD INJURY, AS WELL AS SOME SORT OF PLOT

MAN  
I AM A FREAKIN' BALLER  
I MEAN  
THAT'S, LIKE, A LIST OF THINGS  
AND THOSE THINGS WILL VERY PROBABLY BE TRUE  
ALSO  
MANTICORE IS IN QUOTES BECAUSE I AM NOT YET CERTAIN IF IT WILL BE AN ACTUAL MANTICORE OR NOT  
*releases shift key*

CAPS LOCK IS FOR SISSIES

SHOW ME YOUR LOVE, INTERNET

Or just say hi

it's whatever

It's not like I care or anything

you... you stupid... baka... asshole

I LOVE YOU

oh god what am I doing

~~Arcane-Boomeus~~


	2. Chapter One: The Dreaded Manticore

_A Certain Artificial Bioform_

Chapter One:  
"The Dreaded Manticore"

I woke up to the sensation of something cold on my chest... followed by a weird sensation and the lack of something cold on my chest. I was laying on something soft- presumably a bed- and I was relatively certain that I had no idea who I was. I could hear several voices- five of them, all sounding like they belonged to females.

I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was a ceiling. It was a pretty nice ceiling. Very clean.

"Alice..." one of the voices said softly. One of my hands was grabbed. For some reason, I wanted to cry. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. _'I guess my name's Alice, then,'_ I thought.

I opened my eyes and sat up. The girl who was holding my hand promptly hug-tackled me... and I didn't even budge. The four other girls laughed.

The girl, who was now (mostly) in my lap, righted herself and wrapped her arms around my neck. To make matters worse (or maybe better) she was quite a bit taller than me, and, er, _well-endowed_. 'Well-endowed' is a way to describe someone with large breasts without being overly direct about it... you know, this whole sentence is a waste of space... oops.

She must have realized that she was drowning me in boob, because she pulled away slightly. She was pretty- and, for some reason, her nose struck me as being adorable. Her eyes were larger than I had thought human eyes were, and brown. Her most striking feature, though, was her hair. Her hair was purple. _PURPLE_. As if purple hair wasn't odd enough, her hair was styled into twisty drill-esque-shapes.

"I- _we_, were all so worried about you, Alice," she said, running a hand through my hair- which was very long. When her hand reached my butt, I became suspicious of her intentions.

I awkwardly looked back up at the ceiling in an attempt to not stare at what was happening. When that failed, I looked into her eyes. "You're very... _friendly_, aren't you?"

The girl reacted as if I'd slapped her across the face. "I'm... Tsukasa. Tsukasa Takamichi. We're... _close_."

I blushed. "Oh. Good. That makes this... less weird, I guess... um..." I cleared my throat. "Who're these other people? And, uh, _who am I_?"

So I was introduced to all of my friends again. Misaka Mikoto, Kuroko Shirai, Saten Ruiko, and Uiharu Kazari. The famous 'Railgun'/'Ace of Tokiwadai' and level five electromaster, an esteemed Judgment officer and level four teleporter, an upbeat and athletic 'level zero', and another esteemed Judgment officer/computer hacker with some random level one power- respectively.

"I feel like I know all of you..." I said, when Tsukasa had finished introducing them.

Saten laughed. "Of course you do! I wouldn't be able to forgive you if you forgot me!"

It was around this point that I realized that I was naked. I indicated my distress by making an embarrassed squawking noise and covering up my bathing suit places with my arms.

In response to my realization, Kuroko laughed so hard she fell over. Misaka zapped Kuroko with lighting from her hair. Tsukasa winked at me. Saten flipped Uiharu's skirt up. Uiharu blushed and began ranting at Saten, who complimented her on her choice in undergarments in a mildly flirtatious way.

"You people are all insane," I breathed, "I don't know whether to laugh or... do... something that isn't laughing..."

Misaka didn't like me calling her crazy. "I'll have you know that I'm praised as the most sane of all of the level five espers in Academy City! _You're_ the crazy one!"

I scoffed. "You're the one shocking your best friend! I'm just a naked amnesiac!"

Uiharu continued to rant at Saten.

"To be fair, Alice, you are a bit... odd. Unstable, even. I mean, you're the world's first completely artificial human, and your powers are weird, and just two weeks ago you _ate a hand grenade._"

The urge to prove that everyone else was weird overrode the temptation to ask how one goes about eating a hand grenade. "Well... well... Uiharu wears those flowers in her hair for no reason! They don't even have anything to do with her power! Not only that, she and Saten both get to wear skirts of considerable length! And Saten likes to read about rumors on the internet! And then they end up being _true_! And Kuroko's a pervert! Saten's a pervert, too, but Kuroko's creepier... also, I could swear that Kuroko's hair was alive! ALSO, MISAKA LIKES CUTE THINGS BUT THINKS THAT IT'S WEIRD TO LIKE CUTE THINGS SO SHE HIDES IT POORLY WITH THINLY VEILED LIES! That's way weirder than eating a grenade!"

Kuroko sat up abruptly. Her hair spasmed threateningly. "_Hey_! My hair is _not_ alive!"

Misaka crossed her arms. "It was a live grenade. And I _do not_ like cute things."

Uiharu pouted and crossed her arms. She was trying to look angry, but it was just adorable. "Maybe I just like flowers! Saten has a flower in her hair, too!"

"Wait, I ate a live grenade? And lived?" I put some sunglasses on. "It sounds like I'm ballin' outta control."

Tsukasa cleared her throat. "How is it that you remembered these things about them... and nothing about meeeeeeeeeeeee?!"

"How are my flowers weird when you just MATERIALIZED SUNGLASSES OUT OF NOWHERE?! HUH?! RIDDLE ME THAT, BITCH!" Uiharu cranked up the sass into maximum overdrive.

"Dammit, Uiharu," Saten said, "this whole thing was profanity-free, and you had to go and ruin it with your goddamn potty-mouth." She turned to me. "Besides, like I said, Alice wouldn't just forget us because she exploded. She's way to stubborn for that. She probably remembers stuff about us out of spite. The sunglasses just prove that she can still use her powers."

I frowned. "If you're telling me my powers are creating sunglasses and not dying from explosions inside of me, I'm not going to believe you."

"Actually," Kuroko said, her hair making a very matter-of-fact gesture, "those things do fall under your powers... kind of. Your powers are unique to you. People who were born the normal way- popping out of a vagina, I mean- have bellybuttons and normal genetics and stuff. Bellybuttons are especially detrimental to your ability to... _use your ability_, but the normal genetics would disallow it, too.

"See, you have the ability to assimilate matter into your body- gaining power and abilities and muscle mass and that kind of stuff in the process. Usually, it's only organic matter, but you've eaten knives and grenades and bullets and a lawnmower before, too... have you ever played _[Prototype]_? You're a lot like Alex Mercer- you gain biomass and shapeshift and stuff, and you seem to be unkillable. You _were_ a level five, but when you ate that grenade, it blew a lot of your biomass out and all over the walls and/or orphans, so now you're a level three. A lifetime of therapy is a lot better than being killed by a grenade, so people really see you as a hero, now."

I waited patiently for her to finish. "Can someone tell me about all of that in a way that's _helpful_?"

Uiharu sighed and sat down on the bed beside me. "You're basically a big glob of organic matter in the shape of a human girl, Alice. You're pretty heavy because of it, too, though you seem to be able to negate the weight through some means nobody understands. You were out for two weeks while we put steaks on your chest so you could regain your mass and heal properly- that's a large portion of your power: assimilating things to make yourself stronger.

"You're incredibly adaptable- your body tends to integrate or become entirely resistant to any attack used against it- and you can 'shapeshift'. Usually, you turn your arms into swords or these really cool whippy-fist-blades or even just arms with super-sharp claws. They're all black with super-awesome glowing red accents and stuff, too." Uiharu realized she was getting into Kuroko territory and cleared her throat. "Anyways, you're extremely strong, pretty fast, and so tough it's stupid. If I were to cut your arm off right now, you'd grow another... provided you had enough biomass, anyways."

I nodded. "Okay... and I eat things to get more biomass?"

"Well... kind of. Most of the time, you just... _absorb_ them. Honestly, it's really gross. Like, reeeeeaaaally, truly, absolutely disgusting. Especially when you're eating people or animals." She shuddered.

"Wait, I eat _people_?"

"Yeah, kinda. You always used to say that you were 'a humanitarian'. Usually, you can only shapeshift into people you've eaten, but I've never actually seen you do that, myself. Apparently, you can shapeshift into anyone you've ever eaten at any time, but you don't seem to like doing that very much, and nobody's complaining."

I shuddered. "That's... creepy."

"Yeah, it is. You're still not back to your regular self yet, though- right now, you're probably around level three. You need to regain biomass to become yourself again."

"How much biomass do I have right now?"

Tsukasa poked my naked chest. "Not much..."

Saten laughed. "Right now, you probably couldn't even pick up a refrigerator- usually, you can toss cars around like... like something really easy to toss around."

Misaka chuckled. "I remember this one time we were jumped by some thugs- one of them was a psychokinetic. He threw a fireball at you... and you didn't even bat an eyelash. Then you ate him... and burst into flames."

Tsukasa giggled. "When you get dressed in the morning, you just slap your clothes against your body and do this weird glorp-y thing to melt inside of them."

"Wait, how long have I been like that? That..." I grimaced. "That doesn't sound right."

"You've always been like that, Alice," Kuroko said. She reached down and grabbed a steak, then tossed it at me. Reflexively, I brought up my arm to block it- when it hit me, it turned black and was sucked into my skin almost instantly.

"Whoa..." I clenched my fist. "So... can I still do all of that? Catching on fire and making my arms into swords?"

"No," Uiharu said, "if you had either the memories or the biomass, then it might be possible, but for the moment, you're almost entirely steak with no memories."

I nodded. "Right. I'll have to learn more and become awesome!" A cool breeze blew through the room. "I'm _still_ naked."

Tsukasa leaned in closely. "You'd better believe you're still naked."

I failed to understand. "What does that even _mean_?"

"It means I'm gonna bend you over and [CENSORED] you until [CENSORED]. Then, I'll take that watermelon and [CENSORED] the seeds, at which point [CENSORED]! When you wake up, we'll make a stew- no, a chowder- out of the [CENSORED] and then, after [CENSORED], we'll feed it to Misaka and Kuroko for breakfast."

I blinked and made a blank expression. "Why do I have to be naked? And why are you so protective of your recipes?"

She winked. "You have to be naked because we can't have wild, hot sex if you're wearing clothes."

"Oh. Okay. I guess that makes sense... are you sure that's sanitary? I mean, we'll wipe down the counter-tops at the very least, right?"

Tsukasa looked off into the distance. And by 'the distance', I mean the corner of the room's very nice and clean ceiling. "I make no promises."

I gasped. "You... you _monster_..."

"You're still the one who eats people, Alice," Misaka said dryly.

"As far as I'm concerned," I said, "I've never eaten anyone. In fact, unless you count those last two steaks, I've never eaten any_thing, _period. I don't even know who I'd go about eating, anyways. I mean, if I had to guess, I'd say 'bad guys,' but... is that really a valid term? Are there really people out there who are so bad that they warrant being consumed and used for a little extra protein?"

Kuroko seemed confused. "Are we sure this is our Alice? That's... she almost sounds like a pacifist..." She threw her arms around Misaka's waist. "HOLD ME, SISSY, I'M AFRAID!"

Misaka replied to this with a swift counterattack, bringing her clenched fist down upon Kuroko's head with great force and no remorse. "Release me." Kuroko complied, though it was probably only because she was out cold.

I was kinda shocked, I won't lie. "Misaka, is that... is that really the way you treat your girlfriend? I mean, you're clearly tsundere, but that just seems cruel."

Misaka's face became redder than Uiharu's had earlier. "SHE IS NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

"Alice, dear," Tsukasa said, "your stupid bangs are in the way. Nobody can tell that you're raising an eyebrow."

Naturally, upon hearing an insult to my hair, I rebelled through sheer instinct. "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!"

"I... wasn't." Tsukasa looked at me like I was crazy.

"OH," I shouted, "SORRY. MY BAD, DAWG."

Misaka slapped me across the face with a steak. "Shaddup." I assimilated the steak... and was unable to talk while it was over my mouth. Misaka looked up at the clock. "There's something I've gotta do... I'll see you guys later, 'kay?"

This piqued my interest. "Ooh, _oooh_! Can I come?"

She frowned. "This is something I've got to do by myself..."

I mirrored her frown. "Ew. Sounds heroic. And stupid. What are you planning?"

She looked around the room- the door and windows were closed, the curtains were drawn, and even Saten had fallen silent, looking expectantly at Misaka.

Misaka rubbed her arm guiltily. "Well... I..."

Uiharu seized the moment and channeled her inner pissed-off Englishman. "_Oi_! Spit it out, ya bloody wank[er]!"

Misaka took a deep breath and blurted, "I'vebeendestroyingresearchlabsbecauseofanexperime nttomakeAcceleratoralevelsixesperbyhavinghimkillof fliketwentythousandclonesofmeandhe'salreadykilledl iketenthousandanditmakesmesadbecausethey'relikelit tlesisterstomebutnomatterwhatIdothere'salwaysanoth erlab,anotherscientist,anothereverything."

I blinked. "What."

Misaka took a deep breath and prepared to repeat the whole thing. Saten interrupted. "She understood what you said, she didn't understand why you felt it was necessary to keep this from us. You know, your _friends_."

Misaka pouted. "I kept it from Kuroko, too."

_'AH-HA! I KNEW IT!' _I thought. Of course, I didn't say that, because that would have derailed the conversation. And I know better than to derail something that sounds important... usually. "Yeah," I said, "Especially when your friends include a powerful telekineticist, a talented teleporter, a brilliant computer-hacker-person-thing, a girl who I'm sure could do some serious damage if she was properly equipped, and, uh, whatever it is I could do, too. I'm sure I could eat the scientists or something, right?"

Saten flexed her biceps. They were pretty impressive, actually. "She's right, Misaka!"

"Yeah!" I agreed, "She's right, Misaka!"

Tsukasa patted me on the head. "She was agreeing with you, Alice. You don't have to agree with her again. That's just redundant."

Misaka shook her head. "No... no, it's alright. I expect I'll be getting some... unwanted help. I'll be fine." She looked down at Kuroko. "Just... don't tell Kuroko about it, okay? You guys know how she gets sometimes."

I did that thing with my eyes- you know the one: a suspicious or otherwise untrustworthy/nervous/paranoid/whatever character looks to one side, but only with their eyes, then to the other, only with their eyes, and then back, _only with their eyes_. Yeah. That's what I did. Only, with my eyes. Heh heh. Oh, man, was that irrelevant. Sorry. I just started playing with the words, and then... and then wordplay happened. FORGIVE ME.

Uiharu cringed and looked away. "Alice, what's with your eyes?"  
Tsukasa put on a super-serious face. "It appears she is attempting to look shifty. Perhaps she is attempting to indicate that she does not, in fact, 'know how Kuroko gets sometimes'."

I gasped. "Are you a wizard?!"

Tsukasa shrugged. "No, I'm just used to you... being you."

Misaka calmly walked out of the room... and, as soon as the door had closed behind her, I heard her running away.

"I'm so proud of her," I sighed, resting my head on Tsukasa's 'pillows', "running off to save ten-thousand lesser copies of herself by fighting some ridiculously-powerful dude." Tsukasa rested her chin on my head.

A tear ran down Saten's cheek. "They grow up so fast..."

Uiharu rolled her eyes. "Anyways," she said, "Tsukasa, are you still gonna help me out with that conveniently inconvenient _thing_ we talked about earlier?"

"Wow," Tsukasa said dryly. She looked irritated. "I can't believe I forgot about that totally pre-arranged-and-definitely-not-just-a-cheap-way-t o-get-us-out-of-the-way-while-Saten-and-Alice-go-o n-some-stupid-adventure _thing_." She glares at you so hard that her annoyance breaks through time and space, interrupting the very narrative itself and hopping into the present tense. "It's just so unlike me," she tells you rather pointedly, "I'm usually so responsible. I can't imagine how the writer will work his or her way out of this situation- now that I have shown what it is that makes me such a powerful and unique telekineticist: MY ABILITY TO MOVE THE FOURTH WALL!" She tilts back her head and laughs maniacally. "WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO NOW, HUH? IT'S NOT LIKE YOU CAN JUST CUT ME OFF WITH SOME SORT OF... SHIFT IN TIME, OR BY SWITCHING SCENES! YOU ARE HELPLESS BEFORE MY-"

**0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O**

Saten laughed awkwardly as we carried Kuroko back to her room. "Man, Tsukasa just gets really weird sometimes, you know?" She shrugged good-naturedly. "I guess that's just what happens when you don't take your meds." She casts a glance at you and winks. "Taking your prescription medications is very important, after all."

I winced. "Ow. What are you doing. Who are you talking to. Why can't I put the proper inflection on my questions. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME."

Saten handed me a bottle of pills. "Here, take these."

I grimaced. "Are you sure? The label says-"  
Saten slapped me across the face. "Dammit, Alice, I'm only a doctor! Not a doctor!"

I squinted at her for a bit. She was somehow holding Kuroko up without either hand. "Well, okay," I relented, falling for the peer pressure, "I can't argue with that logic." I looked at the bottle. "How many do I take?"

"Just eat the whole bottle."

I shrugged and tossed it into my mouth. "Are you sure about this?" I gasped. "Thank you, Doctor Ruiko. How can I ever repay you?!"

We tossed Kuroko's limp body onto Misaka's bed. How did I know it was Misaka's bed? _Fuck you_, that's how.

I'm sorry, that was rude. See, I'm conserving details that don't really matter- all that matters is that she ends up laying on Misaka's bed when that spiky-haired dude whose name escapes me shows up later. See, I'm giving her a more sympathetic reason for being on Misaka's bed instead of her own- horrible head trauma!

"Okay, Alice," Saten said, whipping out a snazzy-looking yellow book, "I heard an amazing new rumor on the internet!"

The book had all sorts of fancy squiggles and shi-er, _things_ surrounding the words: 'Book of Crazy Mythical Shit'.

I frowned. "Wait, what does this book have to do with the internet?"

"Well, rumor has it that the Manticore is running loose in Academy City! It's a magical creature with the ability to see the truth- it's called 'The Eye of True Seeing'. It also breathes fire, has pointy fingernails and/or claws, and is anywhere from five to ten (or more) feet tall! It eats human flesh and teaches classes at the School of Pain."

I gasped. "No... that's the worst place to teach classes!"

"Think about it, Alice," Saten said, "those are all super-awesome traits! And you get powers from eating stuff! What if you could breathe fire? What if you had the 'Eye of True Seeing'?"

"What if... and I'm just throwing this out there... but, what if I got the ability to have pointy fingernails and/or claws?!"

Saten nodded. "Right, right? Well, how about this? WHAT IF YOU COULD _EAT HUMAN FLESH_!?"

I gasped... _AGAIN_! "THE POSSIBILITIES! THEY ARE ENDLESS!"

"However," Saten said, holding up her pointer finger to show that the following statement would be a pointed one, "the Manticore is no mere mortal foe." She opened the book. "It says here that the Manticore feels happiness whenever other people feel sad."

"The bastard!"

"Moreover," Saten said, "it says that the Manticore invented death- and _all things that are bad_."

I crossed myself. That's worthy of note because I'm not even Catholic. "Mother of God..."

Saten put a hand on my shoulder. "We're gonna need to be prepared for this," she said.

"Right..." I scratched my chin. "We'll need to go to every all-you-can-eat buffet we can find... and then a zoo, an aquarium, and someplace that sells swords and stuff..."

Saten nodded. A tear rolled dramatically down her cheek. "We're the only ones who can stop this ferocious beast, Alice..." She put on some wicked-awesome sunglasses. "Let's get this done."

**0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O~0~O**

I sighed as I absentmindedly wiped the blood off of my new bat._ 'I really wish Alice's hair was a bit shorter,_' I thought, _'the way she's bent over with her short Tokiwadai skirt... I wonder what kind of panties she wears...'_

Alice turned and frowned at me. "Saten, are you staring at my ass?"

I shook my head. "Of course not," I lied.

She shrugged. "Oh, alright. Sorry." She made a catlike expression that was made even more adorable by the blood soaking her face, then went right back to carefully removing the eyes of the Manticore's mangled body. As it turned out, the Manticore was just some gang leader who never clipped his nails and had some sort of strange ability that allowed him to see things. More importantly, he had the super-badass red eyes.

"Okay," Alice said, "I got 'em!"

"Oooh, oooooh," I cheered, "lemme see!"

She turned around and fixed me with a menacing glare from her glowing red eyes. "How do I look?"

I pissed myself. Literally. "That's, uh... holy _shit_."

"Hee-hee~" she giggled, turning and stomping on the corpse. Black lines shot out of her ankle and wrapped themselves around the body, sucking it in in a matter of seconds.

"Man," I said, looking around the blood-soaked (abandoned) warehouse, "you must have gained a lot of biomass. Those new appendages of yours really came in handy."

"I know, right? I was especially pleased with the tentacle-whippy-thing. Did you see when I snatched that guy from across the room?" She laughed.

"Yeah! That was awesome! He was screaming for his mother and crying and bleeding and.. and _everything_! But I liked the claws more- how you got those super-sharp and ridiculously-long blades from a trip to the zoo, I don't even pretend to know, but when you slashed that dude's face off- ah, the look on his dismembered face was priceless. A real classic, you know?"

"Oh, I got the claws from a movie that was playing in one of the buffets- I just made them cooler- I think it was something about a nightmare or a street or... something. More importantly, though" Alice said happily, "we _totally_ saved a box of kittens!"

"I think this is it, Alice." I exhaled thoughtfully. "We're the real deal now- we're heroes."

"I think you're just being modest," Alice said, "we're not heroes. We're badasses. I saw you whack that dude with your bat- you cleaned his clock! _Forever_!"

We laughed heartily. "I don't know about you, Alice," I said, "but all that violence made me hungry as shit."

Alice shrugged. "I suppose I could eat- after all, my stomach's still empty."

We laughed about that, too. "I still can't believe that you just walked through those buffets and absorbed everything- that was hilarious!"

Alice looked up at me with those big, red, murderous eyes. "I still think you should have gotten a sword," she said sweetly, "you could have killed way more guys."

I put an arm over her shoulders. "Don't worry about me, Alice," I said, "as far as I'm concerned, less is more... 'sides, nothing beats the feeling of a skull shattering as you hit it with a baseball bat."

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"Hey," I said, "can you guys explain to me what I am? I mean... I'm clearly not some sort of genetically modified thing- that's not how genetics work, is it? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but... I don't think this makes any sense."

Uiharu and Tsukasa exchanged confused looks. "Actually, Alice," Tsukasa said, "that's a really good point- I mean, you make no biological sense whatsoever. It's like you have your 'human' form, and you just... absorb features from things you assimilate..." She looked to Uiharu for explanation.

"Well," Uiharu said, her fingers tik-takking away on the keyboard of the computer she just happened to be carrying, "data on you is... _iffy_ at best, Alice. You were made by the Americans, and they're not exactly forthcoming with their information... however, it seems that your A-I-M dispersion field is... abnormal. It seems that it actually alters nearby cells. There are quite a few theories on your construction and abilities, but... they're almost entirely conjecture." Uiharu appeared to be reading something intently- something with enough techno-babble that she had to stop and think about it.

I leaned up against Tsukasa and whispered, "A-I-M dispersion field?"

Tsukasa put her lips up against my ear and began her long-winded explanation- all in an irksomely husky whisper. "A-I-M: An Involuntary Movement. An AIM dispersion field is a sort of minute effect an Esper has on his or her surroundings. For example, an electromaster like Misaka puts off electromagnetic fields, while a telekineticist like me exerts pressure on nearby objects. The effects of an AIM dispersion field are so minute as to be undetectable by even the keenest senses.  
"Furthermore, the AIM dispersion field is believed to be an extension of an esper's personal reality- the analysis of an AIM dispersion field is one of the ways to determine a particular esper's personal reality; the AIM dispersion field could be thought of as the medium through which an esper's personal reality influences the world around them."

Uiharu seemed to have finished reading whatever it was she had been reading. "Okay," she said, "the theory that has garnered the most support- and makes the most sense- is that you were made with specifically engineered cells and/or nanomachines of some sort, which would allow your body to be as adaptable as it seems to be. Your ability is theorized to be the ability to manipulate cellular structure and repurpose any cellular material you might assimilate to do... well, whatever you want it to do."

I brought a hand up to my chin. "I guess that makes sense... kind of. Who knows, maybe I'm just magical or something?"

Uiharu and Tsukasa scoffed. "C'mon, Alice," Tsukasa chided, "don't be childish. There's no such thing as magic."

I frowned. "How the hell should you know? That kind of thinking is incredibly narrow-minded, don't you think? I mean, for God's sake, you can _pick shit up with your mind_, Tsukasa. Just because you've never _seen_ any evidence to prove that something does exist doesn't mean that it doesn't exist."

"Perhaps," Tsukasa said, "but no-one has ever seen any evidence to prove that magic exists-"

"Did espers exist before science took notice of them?"

"Well... I _suppose_..."

I slapped on my best troll face. "But- _surely_ someone would have noticed it and reported it to the scientific community immediately, right? You can't be telling me that science has ever not known everything there is to know!"

Tsukasa sighed. "Okay, fine, you're a magical goddamn unicorn dancing on rainbows and shooting lasers out of your ass. Happy?"

"Only if I have wings, too. And a pet dragon. And a nice library somewhere... and maybe a treehouse..."

"What if," Uiharu chimed, "the library _was_ your treehouse?"

I gasped. "That... would be... _the_ _**best**_ _**possible**_ _**THING!**_"

The beeping of the electric scale I was sitting on ended the conversation with a single, decisive stroke. Uiharu began tik-takking on her keyboard again. "Alright, Alice..." she muttered, "it looks like you're back to level five again- you put on over a thousand pounds today... good job, I guess. Don't tell me how you did it. I don't wanna know."

I shrugged. "Saten and I hit up a bunch of buffets and rescued a box of kittens."

_What_? Don't look at me like that. We _did_ do those things. I just left out all the good stuff. It's not like we murdered people- we took out a gang of dangerous criminals!

Tsukasa regarded me with disbelieving eyes. "Kittens, eh?"

I crossed my arms and justified my actions, "What? I like cats. Ya wanna fight about it?"

She grinned. "No, but I'd be down for some," she leaned in close to me and whispered, "_wrestling_."

I blinked. "Is that a euphemism?"

"Yes, yes it is."

Uiharu cleared her throat. "You're free to go, Alice."

"Alright," I said, casting a glance out the window, "I'll be off, then. I think I'll go on a walk, ponder my existence- you know, stuff like that."

"Be sure to get back to the dorms by curfew, Alice," Tsukasa said firmly.

I walked over to the open window and leaned out. "We'll see," I said. I jumped out of the window.

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I stalked silently through the cool night air. The wind wasn't blowing in the slightest, and the streets were mostly empty. I didn't know where I was walking. I didn't have any place in mind- not that I would have known how to find anything, what with my lack of memories and all.

_'Was I justified in my actions today? Was killing those men truly the right thing to do? __If what the others said and implied is anything to go by, this isn't anything new... I must have been a monster...'_

I shuddered. I could still see the Manticore's face in my mind's eye. He was screaming in horror.

_'What could I have been doing, two weeks ago, that would warrant the usage of a grenade against me? What villainy was I engaged in at that time?'_

I took a deep breath._ 'Maybe... maybe I lost my memories for a reason. Maybe this is a message- from God, from the universe, from the dude with the 'nades... it doesn't really matter who, I guess... just that I listen.'_

I looked up at the moon. _'I doubt those men were doing anything that warranted my actions. If I am to kill... I should kill people who deserve it. People who can't be put down by others, be it because they are too weak or... whatever.'_ I held my hand up in front of the moon and shifted the skin away, leaving black and red in its place._ 'I was designed with violent acts in mind,'_ I decided, _'that much is clear... but who says that makes me evil? Yes... I shall bring unspeakable pain unto others... but only unto those who deserve it.__'_

I let my hand fall back to my side. '_The punishment should be proportionate to the offense...'_

Apparently, I'd been walking for quite awhile, because someone said, "Number eight...? What the hell are you doing here?"

I looked up to the source of the voice- a thin young male with shaggy white hair and strange eyes. "I haven't the slightest clue," I replied honestly.

He raised an eyebrow- it, too, was white. "Come on, Ice," he said in a mocking tone, "don't play coy with me. You're not fooling anyone."

I grimaced. "Is that the type of person I am? Do I lure people in by playing innocent, only to slaughter them?" I looked forlornly at my hand.

He laughed. It... was not a good laugh. "It's hard to know. You're not one to leave survivors, are you?" He laughed again. "They call you 'Predator' for a reason, don't they?"

"...'Predator'..." My hand clenched into a fist. "They fear me, then?"

"They do." He looked me up and down. "I almost envy you, you know. People know not to fuck with you- if only because they're worried enough about you coming to fuck with them regardless." He laughed. "So, what's with all the questions, Ice? Don't know who you are anymore?"

I nodded. "It would seem so. Apparently, I ate a grenade- and that didn't do me much good."

His expression was one of disbelief. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"I am."

"So you don't know who I am? Don't remember me at all?"

"I hadn't been addressed as 'Ice' until just now- I'm assuming that's my surname."

He laughed. "I'm Accelerator. The most powerful Esper in Academy City."

"Hello." I regarded him coolly. _'This is the guy Misaka was talking about- the one that is supposed to be raised to level six by killing a bunch of clones.'_ He didn't _look_ very physically imposing, so I assumed he was probably telling the truth- after all, if I was as feared for my brutality as he said, then he wouldn't have risked making me want to fight him unless he was certain he could take me. "You called me 'number eight'. To what does that refer?"

He laughed "Did you really just ask, "To what does that refer?" When did you get so... eloquent?" He laughed again. "I guess you don't know, huh?" He laughed some more. "Number eight. You're the eighth- the newest- level five in Academy City, kid. Coincidentally, I was the first." He laughed. "You're a level five, but I don't think anybody's actually figured out just what the hell your ability is yet!"

I grimaced. "Academy City isn't a very good place, is it?"

"No, it isn't," he said, "in fact, it's a shit-hole."

"The kind of place where you can kill ten-thousand clones of Misaka Mikoto and get away with it?"

He laughed. "You heard about that, huh?"

I nodded. "I did. I just don't understand how you're expected to gain power from it. You said you envied me because I am feared, and because no-one attacks me- which tells me that you have done more than your fair share of fighting. I fail to see what more of the same could possibly accomplish... I suppose I could gain strength from eating twenty-thousand electromasters, but that is a trait that is... unique to me." I chuckled. "Though, I'm only speaking from less than a day of experience."

"Who am I to question a supercomputer? Tree Diagram may have been destroyed, but its calculations must have had at least some validity to them."

I shrugged. "I guess..." I looked around. "Do you happen to know which direction I need to go to get to Tokiwadai?"

He pointed. "It's a little ways in that direction."

"Right..." I turned to face in that direction. "Thanks." I said it like I was going to leave, but I stood there for several more moments. "... Am I evil?"

Accelerator laughed. "Who knows? You certainly _were_ evil, but, as far as I can tell, the amnesia did you some good... maybe everyone could be better off if they didn't remember everything they did."

I shrugged. "I... thanks." I turned back to look at him again, with the glow-y red eyes of 'true seeing'. He cringed. The only difference I could see was in his wardrobe- apparently, his 'true' shirt was a white one with black lines on it, as opposed to his current one, which was black and had white lines on it. "I heard someone's going to come and try to stop you tonight," I said, "try not to get your ass kicked."

With that said, I returned to my prior facing and began to leave.

"Don't worry about me, kid. I'm the most powerful Esper in Academy City!" He... didn't laugh. After a few moments, he shouted, "And for fuck's sake, Ice, put some fucking clothes on!"

I looked down at myself. "I could have sworn I was wearing clothes earlier," I muttered, forming some fake 'clothes' out of biomass to cover myself.

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I sat facing the door to our room with an irritated look on my face. My arms were crossed, and my right pointer finger was making a point of tapping my left arm once every five seconds. Two minutes and eleven seconds before curfew, the door opened, and Alice, looking downtrodden, entered.

"Hey, Tsukasa," she said.

I scowled. "I had a feeling you'd be like this..." I sighed. "You always act like you're so sure of yourself, but you're not. You never ask for help, never want it, can't stomach the thought of having to rely on someone else... well, I'm sick of it. What the hell is your problem?"

She looked at me with those troubled eyes of hers. They were gray, dull, listless... just like they had always been. "I... I don't want to be bad, Tsukasa, but..." She trailed off. "I don't want to be evil, or a monster, or some... _thing_ that everyone checks their closets for every night..." She began to cry. I hadn't ever seen her cry before. She walked closer to me.

"And what the hell makes you think you're bad? You used to do bad things, but they were never outright evil- you didn't go around punting babies and slaughtering orphans. You just need to control _yourself_. It's not that you can't go out and fight the 'bad guys', it's that you can't go out and slaughter every morally questionable person you come across. I know you better than you do, Alice. I'll bet you spent the whole night wandering around and trying to change yourself, wondering why you had to be such a monster, and a bunch of other bullshit like that. Am I right?"

Alice nodded minutely. "I-I know what I did to those people today was wrong... I knew it even as I was doing it... but I didn't stop myself. I enjoyed it, Tsukasa. I enjoyed killing them. Every second of it! **EVERY! GODDAMN! **_MOMENT_! HOW CAN I EVER-"

I slapped her across the face, putting all of the force that I, a level four telekineticist, could muster behind the blow. She staggered sideways and, on instinct, transformed her arms into a pair of crazy-awesome swords. It took her no time at all to return her arms to normal- I barely even saw them. "You see? That right there, that instinctive response, your self-defensive _whatever_- _that's_ what you need to control. You were always paranoid, Alice, always alert... I'll assume you were made to be like that- always wanting to become more powerful so as to better protect the things you cared about. But you don't have to be. You can fight without killing, Alice. You never enjoyed _killing_- you enjoyed _fighting_. And being impossible to kill gives you a distinct advantage- you can hold back as much as you want, offensively, and it will only make you more powerful _defensively_. You can go toe-to-toe with a fucking tank, using nothing but your fists, and _win_. You don't have to stop fighting, you just have to stop _killing_."

Alice gave me that blank stare that I knew all-too-well. It was her 'how did I not think of this' look. "You're a clever girl, Alice, but you can't work everything out on your own. Because, on the inside- well, not _literally_ on the inside, but..." I snickered. "Sorry, I almost went on a ramble there- I've spent too much time around you." I smiled warmly. "You may be a weird glob of meaty stuff, but on the metaphorical inside, you're a person, just like the rest of us. And we all need a little help sometimes..." I pulled Alice into a hug and squeezed her as hard as I could- her muscle mass was so dense that I couldn't compress it in the slightest.

She returned the hug, gently squeezing my waist. "Thank you."

I sighed. "Don't go thanking me now," I said, "we've only got two weeks of summer break left, and we've gotta turn you from a killing machine to an almost-pacifist... and I know just how we're gonna do it..." I laughed evilly.

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**End Chapter One**

This story is fun. Expect more badassery next chapter.

AND MORE REFERENCES

ALWAYS MORE REFERENCES

WAHAHAHAHAHAHA~!

Be sure to let me know how great/sub-par/par this is, 'kay?

**I RELISH YOUR FEEDBACK**

but not pickles

or relish, for that matter

and don't even get me started on mayonnaise

fuck mayonnaise, amirite?

~~Arcane-Boomeus~~


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